LEWISTON – Wal-Mart should begin work on the first of two warehouses in September, city officials said Thursday.

The company has named New York’s W.H. Lane the general contractor for the project. H.E. Sargent Inc. of Stillwater will do the site work for the project.

City Administrator Jim Bennett said he got the news at 10:40 a.m. Thursday in a phone call from company officials. The company and bidders met last week to settle the deal, and Bennett said he had been trying to get word from the company ever since.

“That’s the good news, what we’ve been waiting to hear,” Bennett said.

The company will go forward with both phases, Bennett said, starting with a 485,000-square-foot mechanized warehouse for produce and refrigerated groceries south of Goddard Road and west of Plourde Parkway. That is expected to be completed next year, and work will begin on a 435,000-square-foot dry-goods warehouse. Work on that phase should be finished in 2006. All work on the site should be done by 2007, Bennett said.

“We’re all very eager to get this started,” Bennett said. “This is going to have a huge financial impact on the area, just considering the construction. No matter how you look at it, it’s going to bring workers to Lewiston. That’s going to have a huge impact on local hotels and motels and food and certainly shopping.”

When it’s finished the project is expected to bring as many as 750 jobs to Lewiston.

The company first announced the project in December 2001. Councilors approved the first phase of the project and agreed to $16.7 million in state and local financial incentives. Those included giving the company the city’s gravel mine for the new warehouse, agreeing to a 20-year tax increment financing deal, and agreeing to upgrade utility lines in the area.

Councilors agreed to let the company delay the project by a year in 2003. The company last year and began planning to build both phases as soon as possible. According to that plan, the company was scheduled to break ground in May.

The company is now planning to have a construction meeting in Lewiston on Sept. 14 or 15, Bennett said. The official groundbreaking ceremony should be scheduled then, he said.